Filner and Weiner: Victims of Unreasonable Standards of Behavior

I know you probably answered, "No! We're the voters! We put the average random number generator to shame with our unpredictability!" Still, I have to call you out on this, because I see Bob Filner and Anthony Weiner acting like puppies who just received beatings and have no idea why. Suddenly, everyone wants them to go away, and they can't figure out the reason.

Sure, voters think they have a reason for turning on these politicians. There are numerous accusations of Filner basically sexually assaulting women -- I guess what Democrats would call "friendly fire" in the War on Women. Plus he has this smile that makes you feel like you’re being molested just by looking at it. And Weiner is this comically awful pervert who can't seem to help sending out pictures of his crotch. Combined with his actually being named after genitalia, it's just too much.

These two are obvious creeps who exhibit awful behavior that could only be ignored if committed by a Democrat president during a really good economy. They make you want to use hand sanitizer after watching them on CNN. But what they don't get is why this disqualifies them from holding office in the eyes of voters, and I have to agree with them on this, because it makes absolutely no sense.

To understand the confusion about why Filner and Weiner are too awful to serve in office, let's look at the politicians who seem to be just fine for a majority of voters. Right now, plenty of politicians are extremely incompetent, wastefully spend all our money, are arrogant and dismissive of our needs, and boss us around as if we were children, telling us what we can do and what we can eat. Judging by our bloated, overreaching, incompetent government, the average politician right now is about as awful in his professional life as can be imagined. But we're fine with that. Our standard seems to be that a politician can be a corrupt, bungling idiot who seethes with loathing for each and every one of us... as long as he's not a creep in his personal life.

That’s absurd.

Guessing about politicians’ personal lives based on their work performance, I've always just assumed there are three or four serial killers in Congress. You don't get to $16 trillion in debt unless you have a few people involved who think it’s okay to butcher people for pleasure -- that just seems like common sense. And I thought we were okay with this. But looking at the public’s recent reactions to these two politicians, I now get the sense that if a murdered prostitute were found in a senator's car, people would be all upset by that. And Harry Reid would probably be just as confused as Filner and Weiner are now as to why we'd then want him out of office.